The Storybrooke Connection
by absedarian
Summary: Film noir AU set in 1934: Regina is a nightclub owner, and Emma is a pilot. Or are they? What secrets do they hold? What lies hidden behind the quaint small town facade? SQ, rating subject to change. Based on 2 manips that can be found on my tumblr (absedarian(.)tumblr(.)com/post/69713364861). Chapter titles are songs from 1934. The beautiful cover was made by kayryn on tumblr. :)
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**  
**Author's Note: This AU story is set in 1934, so the music and songs mentioned are from the period between 1930 and 1934 unless mentioned otherwise.**  
**Emma's plane is a model built by her partner, Marco, but if you want to see what it might look like, you should check out the Stinson Reliant and imagine it as a biplane with staggered wings.**  
**I'll try to stick to what I know of the time but most of it is from all those lovely Hollywood movies. This story is AU, which means there might be moments of OOCness. There's no magic in this story apart from the magical attraction between Emma and Regina. ;-)**  
**I don't know how often I'll be able to update. We'll see how it goes, okay?**

* * *

"We have to do something about the situation in the Northeast, Mr. Cummings." The voice that came through the telephone sounded tinny.

"What situation?" The Attorney General asked while shuffling some papers around as he looked for a pen to sign the paperwork in front of him.

There was a short pause, then a sigh. "Have you not been briefed about the situation, Mr. Cummings?"

"Should I have?" Mr. Cummings was getting impatient. He had a dinner at the White House to get to and the President _really_ liked punctuality. "Listen, can we make this short? I'm in a hurry."

The man at the other end of the line chuckled. "Yes, I know," he said. "Dinner with the President. I will be there too. I'm actually calling from the White House now, I just didn't think this was appropriate dinner conversation for tonight. At least not all of it." He drew a breath. "Anyway, in short: we have a serious problem in the Northeast. Guns are coming into the Mid-Atlantic in massive amounts to all the big crime syndicates. Even the Luciano family gets their weapons from this guy. Top of the line guns, rifles, whatever they want. And not just guns, although that is our most pressing problem."

By now the Attorney General was listening attentively. "Do we have a lead on where the guns enter the country and who's behind this?"

"Yes sir, we finally pinned it down to a small coastal town in Maine, but whoever's behind this has managed to stay in the shadows so far. We wanted to ask your approval to send a team of investigators up there … and have that be a BOI operation. It's a special team, but the New York police doesn't exactly have jurisdiction up there."

"Why would I grant your team BOI status? What's so special about this team? The BOI usually handles these cases, and quite well, Mr. Valentine. They brought in Capone after all."

"This is … different. The previous commissioner put the investigators together especially for this mission, and they've been working on it for many months now. They're uniquely suited for the mission, and frankly, I'm afraid any other team simply would not be nearly as effective."

The Attorney General thought about that for a moment. "All right," he finally decided. "I will hand that team of yours BOI status for the duration of the mission. Just remember that they will be held to an even higher standard than your police department, Commissioner."

"And I'm sure they will make you proud, sir. Thank you for your trust," Commissioner Valentine replied. "One more thing," he added after a short breath. "The lead investigator is a woman."

The Attorney General almost dropped the receiver. "A woman? Is that really necessary? Or wise?"

"I didn't like it much myself at first, sir, but she has proven her worth. I'll tell you about her when we have a moment at dinner."

"All right then," the Attorney General agreed. "See you then."

* * *

**Additional notes: **  
**The BOI was the forerunner of the FBI. The name changed in 1935.**  
**Homer Stille Cummings was Attorney General from 1933 to 1939. **  
**Lewis Joseph Valentine was Police Commissioner of New York from 1934 to 1945.**


	2. Chapter 1: Lady Fair

**Disclaimer: I don't own these people. Pity.**

* * *

Emma Swan breathed a sigh of relief as her plane's wheels touched the dusty runway. "Middle of nowhere, looks like," she mumbled, knowing full well she had no reason to complain. At least this town had an airstrip that she had spotted from the air.

She grabbed her bag and climbed out of the cockpit and down the wing, patting the side of her plane as she did. "What are you doing to me, Lady?" Her beloved machine had started to react sluggishly to her commands just as she was about to fly out over the sea, and she knew that she was lucky the malfunction hadn't hit when she was out over the water.

She waited a few minutes, just walking around the plane and looking around. Surprisingly, nobody had shown up yet. She was used to drawing at least a small crowd with her dark blue biplane, but apparently there was something more interesting going on right now.

When the machine had cooled down enough for her to open her up, she took a quick look at the motor. There was nothing that immediately stood out to her, so she closed the flap and resolved to call her fatherly friend and business partner, Marco. "He built you, after all," she told the plane, "and he loves you just as much as I do."

"You always talk to machines?" a rugged voice said from behind her.

Emma whirled around. "Sorry, I had no idea anyone was here," she said with a smile. "It looked pretty deserted."

The newcomer grunted and continued to wipe his hands on a greasy cloth. "She yours?" He pointed at the plane. "Never seen one like her."

"Yep," Emma replied. "First one of her kind. My partner builds the planes, I'm the test pilot," she added. "I was just taking her out for her first really long spin when she acted funny on me, and I thought it better to set down here in … where exactly am I?"

"Storybrooke, Maine." He reached out his hand. "The name's Mike Tillman, I run this place here. If'n you want me to take a look at her, I'd be glad to." He looked like he couldn't wait to touch the beautiful plane.

"Emma Swan." They shook hands. "I'm going to to talk to my partner first, to see if he has any idea what went wrong," Emma declined the offer. "But I bet I could use the help when I start working on her." She looked around. "Got some space in a hangar for her? At least for one night?"

"Lemme get my truck." Mike walked off and returned shortly in an old pick-up truck. "Hook 'er up," he called out to Emma, who grabbed the thick wire and hooked up her front axle. As soon as she was set, she banged on the side of the truck and Mike pulled her into the smaller of the two hangars.

"How far is the town?" Emma asked once her lady was settled.

"About eight miles that way." He pointed down the coast. When Emma groaned, he grinned. "Come on, I'll give you a ride. It's time to head in anyway. Gotta get ready for tonight."

Emma threw her bag in the back of the truck and got in. "Anything special going on tonight?" she asked curiously when she saw the dreamy smile on Mike's face.

"Nope," he replied. "Just a night out at the Queen's club."

_This place has a nightclub? _Emma wondered. _This I have to see._

** o o o **

The drive into town was bumpy and slow on a road that was in desperate need of repair. "Any place in town I could find a telephone and a bite to eat?" Emma asked after a few minutes of silence. Just then the whole car swerved to the side as Mike avoided a pothole. "That's some craters you got around here," Emma commented casually, her other question forgotten.

Mike snorted. "The only good thing about that is that it keeps me in business."

"How so?"

"I'm the only mechanic in town," Mike replied dryly. "And these roads around here keep me pretty darn busy."

"Shouldn't something be done about these holes? Children and small farm animals could get lost in them."

"You wanna see my business crumble, gal?" He laughed but it ended in a sigh. "You're right, of course, and the city council has tried again and again, but the mayor … let's just say he has other priorities."

"Other priorities?"

"Yes ma'am." The car jerked through another pothole. "He's got himself a young lady he wants to impress, and he's spending the town budget and then some on building a library."

"A _library_?" Emma's sounded incredulous. "This is the worst our economy's been in ... ever, and your mayor's building a library?"

"It's been said it's supposed to rival the big one they got down in New York City."

"And there's nothing the people are doing about that?"

"Nothin' much that can be done," Mike said with a shrug. "Our esteemed mayor owns most of the town. And the people in it."

The car stopped in front of a diner. "Well, Miss Swan, welcome to Storybrooke." Mike made a grand gesture. "This right here is the best place in town to get some grub." He pointed at the diner. "And I'm sure Granny's gonna let you use her telephone."

"Thanks, Mike," Emma said sincerely. "Can I buy you a cop of coffee for your troubles?"

Mike shook his head. "Nah, gotta get home and feed the kids," he said. "And then get ready for a night out."

"Ah yes, that nightclub," Emma just had to ask, "is that where everybody hangs out at night?"

Mike grinned. "Those who can afford it, yes ... and many a man and woman who can't, but the Queen hasn't thrown anyone out in a while."

"The Queen?"

"The club is called the Queen's Club, though now that I think about it I never saw an official sign or something ... it's just what it is." Mike chuckled. "The owner is called Regina and someone once told me that the name means queen. I guess it stuck."

"I guess it did." Emma opened the car door and got halfway out before she stopped. "Say, is there a motel or something in this town? Don't fancy sleeping on that bench over there."

Mike's face fell. "Aw man, I completely forgot ... Granny's inn the only place in town that rents rooms but she's been closed down by Gold."

"Gold?"

"The mayor."

_Damn._ "Well, I guess the bench it is, unless I can find a ride back to the airfield later. Wouldn't be the first time I camped with my Lady."

"If it comes to that I'll drive you out myself," Mike assured, "but you should maybe go to the club first. It's in that big house, and most people who work there live in the house. Maybe there's room for you for a few nights."

"Well, I wanted to check it out anyway," Emma said with a sunny grin. "Thanks, Mike." She grabbed her bag from the back of the truck and lightly knocked on the side to let Mike know he could leave. He gave her a two-finger salute and drove off, leaving Emma alone in front of the diner. The door was open and she could see a few people inside. "Guess the mayor didn't want to touch people's coffee," she muttered. _Lucky me._

She could use a good cup of coffee right about now.

** o o o **

_"We lived our little drama_

_We kissed in a field of white_

_And stars fell on Alabama last night_

_I can't forget the —"_

CRASH!

"Oh darn!" A gruff voice muttered. "Sorry."

"Leroy!" Another man hissed loudly.

Regina interrupted her run-through of the songs for the night and let out a long sigh. She wondered what Leroy had dropped now. Maybe it would be better to hire professionals instead of her ragtag group of people if they were planning on being open for business for a while longer.

She walked swiftly toward the bar. "What now?"

A small, squat man looked up at her from behind the bar. "Sorry," he gruffed. "You sounded so good and I wasn't lookin' and …"

"He dropped a box of shot glasses," the second man finished for him, not looking up from the glass he was polishing.

Regina rolled her eyes. "How many do we have left?"

"That was the last box of new ones," Leroy admitted sheepishly.

"So not enough for tonight when everyone and their dog will be here," Regina concluded softly. "Well, I guess I'll drive over to the diner to see if Granny can spare some of hers then."

Leroy visibly relaxed at Regina's words but before he could express his gratitude, another man stormed into the room. "Regina!" A man with black hair skidded to a stop next to her at the bar.

"Killian, what's the rush?"

"Gold is on his way to the diner, looks like it might be some kind of meeting." Killian gulped in some air. "And there's a newcomer in town, who also ended up at the diner, so maybe that's connected."

Regina straightened at once. "I feel a sudden urge for a cup of Granny's best." She held one hand out over the bar. "Thanks, David," she said as she accepted the coat the barman handed her with a small nod. "You're in charge until I'm back. Get ready for business."

"Sure thing, boss," David said with a grin while Killian flinched.


	3. Chapter 2: Temptation

**Disclaimer: Didn't get them for Christmas, so I still don't own any of the characters. Still a pity.**

**Author's Note: I know there's not much happening yet but for me this story is as much about setting the right tone for time as for the plot. If you enjoy the time period, you might also enjoy the odd factoid I sprinkle on this story. if you don't enjoy the time period, you're probably reading the wrong story.**

* * *

Emma looked up and down what she assumed to be the town's main street and decided that she had seen better-off towns, but certainly also places that were worse off. She could smell the sea that apparently was still providing enough money to keep the town afloat even in these difficult times.

The diner's door opened and a young couple came out, laughing. They let go of each other to walk around Emma, one on either side, before clasping hands again. Emma smiled at their obvious happiness.

She was still smiling when she entered the diner and took in her surroundings with a practiced look. Years on the streets of Chicago had taught her to observe and assess, and it had helped her survive a decade in a city in turmoil. After all, she had been living at Mrs. Landesman's boarding house, right across the street from that garage on Clark that ugly, ugly Valentine's Day five years before. The _one_ month she had had enough funds to actually rent a bed for a stretch, and _that_ happened. Sometimes … some nights, she could still hear the mechanic's dog howling as it stood over his owner's slain body. It was the day she grabbed the one bag with all her belongings and left Chicago for good.

It was the day she met Marco and her life changed forever.

She shook herself and came back to the present. That was in the past and she had made it out of Chicago alive and in one piece. _More or less_, she thought.

The diner wasn't empty but there were enough open booths for her to have a choice. As always, she chose one where she had a wall at her back and her face to the door. She had already spotted the second exit through the back, another habit from a time long gone. She took a short look at the menu but since she hadn't planned on staying anywhere for any sort of time she was a little low on funds. If Marco didn't come through for her with an easy idea for the Lady, she might actually have to work for her room and board while stuck in this town.

She watched the other patrons as she waited for the young waitress making the rounds of the tables to come over. She was beautiful, Emma noticed, in a vaguely wild and exciting way. _Now there was a woman who didn't care much about what anybody thought of her._

"Ruby!" the older woman behind the counter suddenly yelled. "What did I tell you about those skirts?"

The waitress blushed and waved at the older woman. _Okay, so maybe one person's opinion mattered._ Then Ruby came over to Emma and winked. "Sorry 'bout my grandma, she's a little ornery at the moment. What can I get you?" She looked Emma up and down and raised an eyebrow at her clothes.

"Coffee, please," Emma replied with a friendly grin, making a mental note to change out of her flight suit coverall soon. "So, that's the granny behind Granny's?" She pointed at the woman behind the counter.

Ruby beamed. "That she is." She leaned a little lower over the table, offering Emma a nice view. "She's one hard-boiled lady, but she knows what's what. Sometimes I just like to mess with her." With that and another wink she left to take care of Emma's order.

Emma took her bag and walked to the restroom to get changed. Her flight suit really wasn't proper attire for walking around town. She pulled it off quickly and rolled it up, so she could stuff it in her duffel bag. She pulled out a pair of woolen pants and pulled them on. The shirt she'd had on under her flight suit stayed on. She looked at herself in the mirror and decided that it wasn't going to get any better than this. She looked presentable, apart from her flight boots, but there was nothing she could do about them now. It was the only pair of shoes she'd brought.

When she got back to her booth, a mug of coffee was waiting for her and she caught Ruby's eye to thank her. Ruby grinned at the change of clothes, or so Emma thought, then turned to face the door as it opened to let new patrons in.

Emma's eyes wandered over the newcomers as well. Three men had entered, a middle-aged man flanked by two slightly younger men, both of whom looked like people Emma had learned to stay away from when she was living on the streets in Chicago.

She focused on the older man who looked distinguished in his bespoke suit, elegant cane, and old-fashioned white spats. Emma smirked at that. She hadn't seen anyone wear spats since she had left Chicago, and it confirmed her belief that this was a backwater town lost in time.

"Mr. Gold," Ruby greeted the newcomers, and even Emma could hear that the cheer was forced. "Mr. Jefferson." She apparently didn't know the third man.

_So that was the library-building mayor._ Emma sat back, sipped her coffee, and watched.

**o o o **

Regina got into the car and quickly drove over to the diner._Well, quick was relative when you were driving a piece of junk that was new seven years ago_, she thought. _At least they had finally traded in their old Tin Lizzie for the A-Model. _She gazed longingly at the picture of the Mercedes-Benz 380 convertible that she had cut out of a magazine and taped to the dashboard. "One day," she said, smiling at the picture. "One day."

The drive took only ten minutes, no matter the car. She parked the car in the alley next to the diner and walked around the corner to first take a good long look through the windows. She spotted Gold immediately since he had chosen his favorite table by the window. He was sitting with one of his right-hand men, Jefferson, but she couldn't make out the third man's face. She squared her shoulders and put on a smile as she opened the door and walked straight up to the counter, ignoring Gold and his cronies completely.

"Hello, Granny," she greeted the older woman with a smile. "How are you this fine evening?"

Granny grinned at Regina. "What are you on that side of the counter for, girl?" She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently. "Come over here and give me a hug. I haven't seen you all week."

Regina did as she was told, smiling at the playful scolding. "Now you know that's not true, Granny," she teased back. "I was in here not two days ago for a piece of your apple pie."

"That _you_ made, child," Granny replied. "Now, what did that oaf of yours drop this time?"

Regina laughed, then looked around as if she wanted to make sure that nobody had heard or seen. Her eyes fell on a blonde woman in the back booth talking to Ruby and she felt her heart skip a beat, and her laughter trail off. _That must be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen._ "Who is that?" she asked, not realizing it was out loud.

"I don't know," Granny admitted as she followed Regina's gaze. "She came in about fifteen minutes ago wearing some godawful coverall."

Regina tried to imagine Emma looking _godawful_ and failed. "Coverall?"

"Ask Ruby," Granny said with a shrug. "They've been talking a bit."

There was a spark of irrational jealousy at that information, and Regina almost physically shook herself to get rid of it. _What did it matter that Ruby had talked to the woman first? It wasn't a competition about who talked to her first …_

Which was when Regina realized that she actually _wanted_ to talk to the stranger, and the thought gave her pause. She usually tried to avoid complications at all costs, and that stranger? That looked like a complication all right.

"So, Leroy dropped something?" Granny interrupted her thoughts, and Regina gratefully tore her eyes from the oblivious stranger's face.

"Our last box of new shot glasses," Regina answered Granny's question. "Could you spare one? You know how the crowd gets on their last night of the weekend."

"Sure I can," Granny reassured her. "Just grab some coffee and sit down while I grab that box for you." Her head subtly pointed at the free booth next to the mayor's table.

"Take your time," Regina said with a smile. "And let Ruby grab that box from the basement for you." Regina _wasn't_ jealous of Ruby, but the girl deserved some punishment nonetheless.

Granny gave her a knowing look. "You got it." She filled a mug and pushed it into Regina's hands. "Now git so I can get some work done."

**o o o **

Emma hadn't missed the other woman's entrance. _How could she?_ She was pretty darn sure _not_ noticing a woman like that was a federal crime. Her hand clenched around the mug she was holding as she tried to follow the woman's progress through the diner without being too obvious about it. _Holy hot damn, that was one hot dish._

The newcomer was obviously a regular and a friend of Granny's judging from the way she greeted the owner of the diner. Emma caught Ruby's eye and called her over by raising her still half-full mug. She desperately choked down a huge gulp of too hot coffee, so she could justify the refill.

"Who is that?" she asked as casually as she could while Ruby filled up her mug.

Ruby looked over her shoulder. "That?" she asked. "That's Ms. Mills." She grinned wolfishly. "Probably the most beautiful dame in town." Emma was as surprised as Ruby to hear the growl coming from deep in her throat but Ruby just laughed at her behavior. "Easy, Romeo," the waitress said with a laugh. "I didn't mean nothing by that."

"I … I didn't …" Emma hardly ever found herself lost for words but suddenly her tongue was tied in knots.

Ruby just kept on grinning. "Listen, honey," she said, putting her hand on Emma's forearm. "It's fine with me if you swing that-a-way." She leaned closer to Emma's ear. "I have no idea if she does, though. She lives with a ton of guys." She squeezed Emma's arm before she let go and sauntered to another table.

Emma could feel the blush on her face. How obvious had she been? She focused on her coffee mug to get herself under control. _Be cool, Swan. Nice and easy. Breathe in and out. See, no problem._

Emma was so focused on her own breathing that she missed the glances the newcomer threw her way, but she did look up in time to catch the tail end of a look as the woman turned away from her and towards Granny. Curiosity overrode her embarrassment once more and she followed the brunette's progress from the counter to the booth next to the mayor's.

She watched the brunette until Ruby approached her table and dropped a box of something in front of her. The woman rose gracefully, gave a short wave to Granny and left.

In the door she turned around one last time and her eyes met Emma's across the diner, and Emma felt the look like burning embers on her skin. She broke the gaze before she melted, and when she looked up again, the woman was gone.

Emma suddenly felt the urge to leave straight away. She looked for Ruby but the waitress was busy with other patrons, so Emma got up and walked over to Granny's.

"What do I owe you for my coffee?" she asked the older woman.

"Five cents," Granny replied.

Emma handed over a nickel with a smile. "I heard that your inn is the only one in town," she mentioned.

"That's right," Granny replied. "Unfortunately our illustrious mayor closed it down for the time being."

"Yeah, I heard that too," Emma admitted. "Problem is I'm stuck in town for a few days and need a place to bunk …"

Granny gave her the once-over with a look in her eyes that Emma couldn't read. "I suggest you walk over to the Queen's Club and talk to Regina," she finally said after a few moments. "Tell her I sent you, and she'll put you up. You might have to do the odd job around the club though, so …"

"Oh, that's fine," Emma quickly agreed. "Just point me in the right direction?"

Granny described the way to the club and Emma left with one last wave to Ruby and a smile to Granny.

Granny watched her go with a smile of her own. "Never let it be said I don't do you any favors, Regina," she muttered under her breath.

Ruby was suddenly right by her side. "Where did Emma run off to?"

"The young lady needed a place to sleep for a few days." Granny smiled even more widely. "I sent her to Regina."

Ruby thought of the starstruck look on Emma's face. "Well done, Granny," she said. "I'll see her there later then."

"So will I," Granny said. She couldn't wait to see how things played out. There was something in the air tonight in Storybrooke, and she wanted to be right there to see it happen.

* * *

**Additional notes:** **The famous Valentine's Day Massacre (Valentine's Day, 1929) happened at a garage on Clark Street in Lincoln Park, Chicago. One of the men who was killed was a mechanic who only occasionally worked on gang cars. His dog was chained to a truck in the garage and his howling and barking alerted the owner of a boarding house across the street, Mrs. Landesman, who sent one of her tenants over to the garage to investigate.**

**Spats went mostly out of fashion in the 1920s.**

**The Ford Model A was the successor of the Model T (Tin Lizzie) and was built from 1927 to 1931.**

**The Mercedes-Benz 380 (also known as the W22) was built from 1933 to 1934.**

**And yes, coffee at a diner really was a nickel at the time ...**

**1930s slang:**  
**dame – woman**  
**hard-boiled - tough**  
**dish - attractive woman**


	4. Chapter 3: Ill Wind

**Disclaimer: Still don't own them.**

**Author's note: I've decided I'm only going annotate the 1930s slang that might actually be difficult to understand. Fact-wise there's nothing much to annotate this chapter.**  
**The chapter title "Ill Wind" is a song written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen.**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Ill Wind**

Regina drove back to the mansion as fast as her little car would go. Opening time was nearing quickly and she still had to share what she had learned at the diner, get ready for the night …

And get a certain blonde stranger out of her mind.

She stormed through the foyer and down the back stairs to where the club was. The house with its huge basement area had been a fantastic find, ideal for their purposes here in Storybrooke. She smiled at all the perks the house provided, which also included more than enough room for all of them.

One look around the club told her that everything was ready for the doors to open and she shot David a grateful look. She spotted Leroy through the open door of the stock room behind the bar and called him over. "There's a box of shot glasses in the car. Please get them all downstairs in one piece."

Leroy ran off and came back moments later, handling the box as if he wanted to marry it the next day. He put it on the bar in slow motion and grinned at Regina who couldn't help but grin back. Then he vanished behind a door before Regina could stop him.

"Anything interesting, boss?" David asked casually as he wiped a non-existent stain on the bar. Regina wondered if he hadn't found his real calling here in this set-up.

David saw Regina looking around. "Jones is fiddling with his kit. You know those skin ticklers." He whistled loudly and Killian poked his head through the curtain a second later, then came over slowly.

"I wish he remembered that's not his actual job." Regina nodded at David. "Has the Cricket shown up yet?"

David shook is head. "And Astrid is upstairs in the kitchen fixing some sandwiches for later before leaving."

"Good." Regina relaxed a little. They had been forced to hire some local people once they had opened the club but that didn't mean that Regina wanted them anywhere near their business. She gave Killian a look. "Would you mind saving Astrid from Leroy's sad attempts at small talk? Please remind him that his job is hunting but that doesn't include the local skirts."

Once they were all huddled together, Regina reported what she had heard at the diner. "This might be it, boys," she began. "Gold was there with Jefferson and a player from out of town. They were talking about a shipment on Wednesday but they didn't mention what they're shipping. Could be dope, could be guns. Jefferson alluded to a location by the water, so I'm assuming they stored the goods either at the old cannery or the adjacent warehouse."

David frowned. "We need to know what we're dealing with," he thought out loud. "We might have to call in some reinforcements."

"Which is why one of you will have to go out and check the locations tonight," Regina said reluctantly. "Gold will be here at the club, and I'm pretty sure he's going to bring the big cheese from out of town. I can't go because I have to entertain." She rolled her eyes.

"I'll go," David offered quickly.

"You can't." Regina looked almost apologetic. As her second-in-command he would have been her first choice if she couldn't go. "I need your eyes and ears on Gold tonight."

"Besides there's no one here who can serve the hooch as well as you can," Killian added. "I'll go. If you switch a couple of songs around, you won't need me. Just tell everyone I hurt my good hand." He held up his wooden hand with a wink.

Regina nodded. "Thanks, Killian."

"What if it's a trap?" Leroy asked.

"Valid question," Killian muttered when Regina shot the short man a look.

"I know," Regina drawled. "It might well be. Gold saw me at the diner and if he's even the least bit suspicious after all these months, this might be his way of getting rid of us for good."

They all were quiet, each contemplating what that would entail. Their silence was broken by a throat being cleared loudly.

Regina whirled around and came face to face with the blonde stranger from the diner. At once, her mind was running through a range of questions, wondering who the woman was, how much she had heard …

And why on earth she was so damn beautiful.

**o o o **

Emma enjoyed the crisp air this early evening in late April. It smelled of spring but there was still a tinge of the winter just left behind that made her glad she had her thick leather coat.

Granny had given her pretty precise directions and had actually apologized that Emma would have to walk there by herself. Emma had reassured her by saying she was no stranger to walking and that it would give her an opportunity to learn the layout of the town.

The walk took close to half an hour but Emma really didn't mind that. Her thoughts were on the beautiful brunette from the diner and who she might be. Her behavior had been a little _off_ after she had talked to Granny but without any further information Emma had nothing to substantiate her weird feeling. It had _looked_ like she had been very interested in what the three men in the booth next to her were talking about while tying to look _extremely_ uninterested. It had made Emma's street smarts senses tingle.

She spotted the mansion from afar. It sat at the end of the street, quite a ways away from other houses. _Good location for all sorts of things._ Like Granny had said, the house was huge and looked too residential to be home to a nightclub. She remembered that Mike had said that there was no official sign anywhere, and she figured in a town this small it wasn't necessary. Besides, she thought, it probably had been a speakeasy not too long ago.

With no idea where to go, Emma shrugged and knocked on the large white door. It took a few moments but then it opened and revealed a small woman in a maid uniform. "May I help you?"

"Hello," Emma replied. "My name is Emma Swan. I'm looking for a Regina." The small woman opened the door a little wider and Emma stepped inside. "Granny sent me."

"Welcome, Ms. Swan. My name is Astrid."

"Astrid? That's an unusual name," Emma said with a tilt of her head.

"Not where my parents were born," Astrid replied with a smile. "Miss Regina can be found in the club downstairs." She pointed at a door. "Through that door and down. I would take you myself but I have something on the cooker."

"It's no problem, I'm sure I can find my way." Emma gave Astrid a final smile and walked towards the door. _There must be another entrance. This is probably for employees and the lady of the house._

The staircase was dimly light and curved a little to the right but there was a light coming through a doorway that told Emma where she needed to go. The door was ajar and she could hear people talking close by. Out of instinct, she stopped behind the door to listen.

The voices were low and she couldn't make out too much but she heard the names Gold and what sounded like Jefferson. _The men from the diner. _She opened the door a little wider at the sound of the woman's voice. It was entrancing and she wondered if it was Regina, the nightclub owner, who was speaking. In her attempt to get closer to the voice she opened the door wider than she intended and saw no chance but to step through completely.

_"… saw me at the diner and if he's even the least bit suspicious after all these months, this might be his way of getting rid of us for good,"_ Emma heard the woman say, and she wondered what was going on here. She had a feeling there was something really fishy going on in this town.

_What did I stumble into here?_ She thought it best to announce her presence if she didn't want to arouse suspicion, so she cleared her throat.

The woman whirled around and Emma's breath stopped in her throat. The woman from the diner. _Damn it, Granny, you could have warned me._

"Hi," Emma said in greeting, giving the woman a shy smile. It was just about everything her fried brain could come up with. _Why does this woman affect me so?_

"Who are you?" the brunette growled. "And what are you doing here?"

_Woah. They're definitely hiding something. _Emma decided to try her luck with the truth. "M-My name is Emma Swan. I'm looking for Regina? Granny sent me over here."

Emma saw the two taller men exchange glances, and the woman before her seemed to consciously relax her shoulders at the mention of Granny's name. The shorter man was too busy looking at Emma's legs. _What an egg._

"I am Regina Mills." The tone was marginally friendlier now. Still wary, but not openly hostile. "What can I do for you, Miss Swan?"

**o o o **

Regina tried to get her shaking hands under control but she wasn't having much success. This stranger, this Emma Swan was having a strange effect on her. At first, Regina had been angry at the possibility of having been overheard but as soon as her brain realized that she was talking to the blonde stranger from the diner, she felt her stomach fill with a swarm of butterflies. _Well, that certainly hadn't happened in many, many years._

She could practically feel Killian and David shooting each other questioning looks at her off behavior. She should have kicked Emma Swan out by now, or at least ask her some hard question as to what she had heard. Instead, she had sent the boys off to their tasks and had taken the blonde upstairs to the mansion to talk.

"Can I offer you a drink, Miss Swan?" Regina asked. "Some cider perhaps?"

Emma nodded, not trusting her voice. She accepted the tumbler and took a quick gulp, and saw her hostess do the same thing.

"What was it that Granny thought I could help you with?" Regina asked again when Emma made no move to speak. She would have smiled at the nervous way Emma clutched her drink if she hadn't been so inexplicably nervous as well.

"Well, the thing is … I'm stranded in town for at least a couple of days and since Granny's inn was closed down by the mayor …" She shrugged.

"The mayor," Regina growled, "should stop harassing the good citizens and business owners of this town."

"Granny's is not the only business having trouble with him?" Emma couldn't help but ask. _Was he running some kind of racket? Was that what the problem here was?_

"No." Regina obviously wasn't willing to share more. "Granny hasn't done anything wrong, but Mr. Gold is a powerful man in this town."

"Maybe I could help?" Emma offered with a shrug. _Just ask me._

"I doubt it, dear," Regina said softly, her voice taking on a slightly warning note. "In fact, it would be better if you stayed out of this and left this town again as soon as you could. It's for your own good." _And mine. I can't have you distracting me from my mission._

Now Emma was even more intrigued. Why did this woman want to get rid of her?_ I could help her._ "I will," she said, not sure if she actually meant it. The more someone wanted to get rid of her, the more she dug in her heels. That had always been the case, and that had always led her into trouble. "But I can't until I can get my airplane fixed, and that will take a few days at least, depending on the parts needed."

Regina raised an eyebrow at that. "You're an aviator?"

Emma grinned, suddenly feeling some of her usual confidence returning. The ladies always liked that part, and it looked like Regina wasn't any different. She smirked and stood a bit straighter.

Regina's thoughts, however, were going in a completely different direction. _What if Emma was part of Gold's big deal?_ It was too much of a coincidence to believe that a beautiful woman would just suddenly get stuck here with a very convenient airplane while Gold was preparing a major deal. She needed to keep an eye on this woman.

Regina was torn out of her thoughts by Emma's next words. "Granny thought you might have a room for me for the duration of my stay, and I really hope you do."

_She was good_ , Regina thought. She really sounded sincere. "Of course you can stay here," she heard herself say. _The best way to keep an eye on this stranger was to keep her close_, she told herself. "Any friend of Granny's is a friend of mine."

"Oh, that's great," Emma said gratefully. Whatever else was going on, she _really_ needed a place to stay. "Thank you."

"No problem, dear." Regina put down her glass. "Let me show you to your room, and then I'll have to get ready for tonight."

Emma nodded and picked up her bag. She followed Regina up the wide staircase, looking around carefully the whole time. Her mind registered the details automatically. _No personal items anywhere, no photos, no knick-knacks. _Nothing that could tell her anything about the people living here. That was weird, in and of itself.

Regina stopped in front of a door she had opened. "I hope this room meets your requirements, Miss Swan."

Emma took a look at the fairly large room with a wide bed, a dresser, and a big wardrobe. "It more than does, thank you. And please call me Emma."

Regina just walked down the hall a little. "This is the bathroom," she pointed at a nondescript door. "You'll be sharing, I'm afraid." She didn't sound too worried about it, and Emma just nodded, not having expected anything else. "Not with the boys, however," Regina amended with a smirk. "They have their own."

They walked back to Emma's new room but before they got there, Regina stopped at a set of double doors across from Emma's room. "This is my room," Regina explained. "Under no circumstances will you enter it. Do you understand?"

Emma nodded, already planning to sneak into the room as soon as possible. "Of course," she replied. "Well, I guess I'll be seeing you later then? In the club?"

Regina raised an eyebrow and gave Emma a slow look from head to toe and back. "The club is at the very least semi-formal, dear," she said evenly. "Do you have anything in that bag of yours that fits that description?"

"Er, no," Emma admitted with a blush. "You see, when I packed this bag it was with an emergency in mind, not getting dolled up for a night at the Ritz."

Regina tapped her fingers on her hips. "Wait here," she said after a few moments and vanished into her own room.

Emma nodded and turned to drop her bag on the bed in her room. She shrugged out of her leather coat and uncurled the thin scarf she almost always wore. She sat down on the bed and moved up and down and sideways for a bit, realizing that this was probably the most comfortable bed she'd had in ages. She flopped down on her back with a sigh and closed her eyes, wiggling around a little on the soft duvet.

"Comfortable, dear?" Regina's voice held a faint note of teasing, and Emma had no trouble imagining the look on the other woman's face. "Here, you can choose from these if you decide to come downstairs." With that she dumped a pile of clothes on Emma's body and left with a soft chuckle, closing the door behind her.

Emma sat up to look through the pile Regina had left with her, and groaned in frustration.

_Dresses. _

She didn't do dresses. Ever.

Flimsy dresses. Elegant dresses. Short dresses, long gowns, dresses she would love to see on Regina. That thought led to wondering what Regina would be wearing later, and Emma imagined her in all sorts of dresses, one more exciting than the next. She imagined her coming closer, whispering soft words in Emma's ear. And then Emma imagined peeling the dress off of Regina. Slowly.

Emma groaned again, this time for an entirely different reason.

**o o o **

Regina stood outside Emma's room, listening to the frustrated groan, grinning wickedly. This woman could very well be dangerous, but that didn't mean she couldn't have some fun. "Welcome to the Queen's Club, Miss Swan."

* * *

**Fun factoid: Emma assumes that the club used to be a speakeasy during the prohibition years. Since she's not from Maine and doesn't live there, she assumes that the prohibition is over, which would be true for most states. It officially ended in December 1933. However, Maine clung on to the prohibition until July 1st, 1934 (and started in the 1850s). And since the story takes places at the end of April, the prohibition is actually still very much in effect in Storybrooke. Well, as effective as a law can be that was broken round the clock by people from all walks of life. :)**

**Slang:**  
**skin tickler - drummer**  
**hooch - drinks, alcohol**  
**speakeasy - bar that served illegal alcohol during the prohibition**


	5. Chapter 4: For All We Know

**Disclaimer: I don't own OUaT or any of its characters. Sad, but true.**

**A/N: Thank you for all the faves, follows, and reviews. :)**

**A/N 2: The chapter title, ****_For All We Know_****, is a 1934 song written by Sam M. Lewis and J. Fred Coots.**

* * *

**Chapter 4: For All We Know**

David, Killian and Leroy were standing at the bar in the club discussing the new developments. They all had seen the looks between the two women and all three of them were suspicious. Well, mostly Killian and Leroy. David thought it better to keep an open mind about these things.

"It's just too much of a coincidence, boys," Killian insisted, just like he had the past ten minutes. "We have Gold preparing for some major deal and suddenly a lovely blonde broad shows up to distract us?"

"I'm with Woody here," Leroy said, pointing his thumb at Killian. "Something smells funny."

David moved his head from side to side while he was thinking. He hadn't gotten a bad vibe off of the stranger but he _was_ a little worried about Regina. "I think she might be on the level," he said with a shrug. "Maybe she really did just have bad luck. These things do happen sometimes, you know." The two other men looked unconvinced. "And why would Gold need an airplane? He has enough boats in this harbor to walk up to Canada from deck to deck if he wants to." He paused. "I _am_ worried about Regina's focus, though," he continued. "You did see the way she looked at—"

"Blondie and her assets?" Leroy asked, waggling his eyebrows. "Hell, yeah."

Killian grinned. "Did anyone else feel the heat from here or was it just me and my keen senses?"

David snorted. "Let's hope the boss manages to keep her mind on the right things then." All three men nodded gravely. Then David straightened. "Okay, Leroy, you keep an eye on our guest just in case," he instructed. "Just hang out upstairs with your doll if she's still there, and see what you can find out." He waited until Leroy nodded eagerly and walked away.

"He always gets the fun jobs," Killian mock-complained.

David laughed. "Oh, did you want to go spend time with Astrid?" he asked. "I thought that diner girl Ruby Lucas was more your type?" Killian just glared at him. "You gotta get ready for tonight anyway. Is there anything from the locker you think you might need?"

Killian thought for a second, then shook his head. "Nah, I'm good. Got my knife and my ankle heater, and my little secret weapon." He patted his lower back, his ankle, and his wooden hand.

"Good," David said with a nod before he picked up his dishrag again. "Then let's get ready for tonight."

**o o o **

Emma just lay on the bed for a while staring at the pile of dresses next to her. After a few minutes, her hand started touching the fabric, her fingers slowly running up and down the different dresses. She was certainly no expert in fashion, but these looked amazing and expensive, and Emma just knew they had to be Regina's. She wasn't sure why but that thought made her smile.

She sat up slowly, and as she did her eyes fell on her leather boots. _Well, _those_ are going to go well with a dress_. She held up one dress after another, dropping all short dresses in a separate pile. She definitely wouldn't be wearing them tonight. _Wait, when did she decide to actually put on one of these monstrosities?_

When Emma had discarded all the shorter dresses, only two dresses remained. One a slim turquoise gown with some elaborate embroidery that looked like it would hug her body in all the right places, and the other a simpler, black gown with a wide swath of silver from the right chest to the left hip. It was held up by a wide silver strap that looped around the neck. It was the black dress that Emma's hand stayed on the longest as she enjoyed the silky feel of the fabric and tried hard not to remember that this dress would have hugged Regina's body before.

Emma stood, indecision halting her movements for a second. She hadn't worn a dress since leaving Chicago, since leaving that life. Once Marco had found her walking by a lonely stretch of road in Illinois and had taken her with him to Iowa, she had never looked back. She had picked up a pair of small men's jeans at a local store, had put on an old undershirt of Marco's late son, and had gotten to work on the airplane her new friend was building.

It had been the airplane she later had learned to fly on, and she had flown it until Marco had sold it to buy materials for the new and improved airplane he was planning: her Lady, the airplane that had stranded her here. The thought reminded her that she should place a call to Marco to see if he had any ideas about what went wrong.

She hadn't worn a dress since that day, and she had not planned on ever wearing one again, but apparently life had different plans for her. Emma shook herself out of her thoughts and rummaged through her bag for her emergency toiletries. Nothing would happen before she hadn't cleaned up a little. She could feel the dust that clung to her from her flight and the quick wash-up she had managed when she had changed in the diner hadn't really helped.

Time to check out the bathroom.

**o o o **

Thirty minutes later Emma checked herself in the mirror in her room one last time. She felt weird in the elegant evening gown, which was surely more expensive than all the clothes she had ever owned put together. She scowled at her reflection. It wasn't that she didn't look good — on the contrary, she knew objectively that she rocked that dress, and she enjoyed the fact that Regina had assumed she would, or at least she told herself that was why Regina had given it to her — no, it was more that she didn't feel like she was looking at _herself_ in the mirror.

That mirror image told the story of a woman who knew her way around polite society, who knew which fork to use when, and to keep her voice down at the dinner table. The woman in the mirror was everything she imagined Regina to be, and for a second Emma was afraid she was going to vanish beneath the gown. She lifted the front of the gown and saw her aviator boots on her feet, reaching up to her knee, giving her stability and grounding her in the reality of who she was inside. She breathed deeply, both in relief and to center herself before venturing into the club. She was still Emma Swan, aviator.

She approached the staircase carefully, trying hard not to step on the hem of the dress, which made her walk more awkwardly than usual. Regina would never have this problem, she thought, while wondering with the next breath why her mind kept on going back to the woman. Yes, she was beautiful and breathtaking and stunning, and a world of words in between but she had seen beautiful women before. So what made this woman so special?

Emma figured she wouldn't find out unless she ventured downstairs, so she took a breath and the first step. She was glad that she had a hand on the banister when she realized that her step had been a little too big for the hem of her dress and she almost went down the stairs head first. _Small steps, Miss Swan, _her brain reminded her, using Regina's mocking voice for some reason. _Think dainty. _

_Yeah, right. _

She made it to the foyer in one piece and promptly patted herself on the shoulder with a sense of achievement. Now she only had to find a telephone. She hoped she could still reach Marco, but since they were an hour ahead of him, he should still be at the hangar, tinkering with one thing or another. She looked around the foyer.

"Looking for something?" one of the man who had been with Regina at the bar earlier was suddenly standing next to her.

Emma tried not to jump more than a couple of inches in her surprise. "Yes, actually," she replied. "Is there a telephone around here somewhere? I'm Emma, Emma Swan, by the way."

"Pleasure." Leroy mustered her, sounding grumpy. He had just escorted Astrid out the door after a very nice half hour spent sitting at the kitchen table staring at the object of his affection. He wished she could have stayed. "The name's Leroy. There's a horn in the kitchen. I guess it's okay for you to use that."

"Don't worry, it'll be a collect call," Emma threw in quickly.

Leroy shrugged. "Whatever works for you, sister." He pointed at the kitchen door and watched as Emma walked inside. Then he slowly and silently crept to the door to listen. This was a good opportunity to confirm his suspicions that their boss had been too taken by blonde too fast. Instead of taking her in and giving her a room, she should have kicked the stranger in the shins for spying on them earlier. Leroy didn't like it one bit.

Emma found the telephone on the wall close to the door. it was a relatively modern model and she wondered if Maine already had the direct dialing service. If so, then somebody sure as hell didn't like their local calls overheard in this town. She thought fondly of Marco's telephone, a candlestick from 1922 that he swore to keep until the telephone company made him get a new one. So far that hadn't been necessary since their small town in the middle of nowhere still had a very nosy and well-informed operator.

Emma dialed the operator and got prompt service. "Hello, I'd like to place a collect call to Trenton in Iowa. The number is Westfield 459."

"Please wait while I connect the call."

Emma looked around the large kitchen while she waited for the call to go through. It looked functional, and all the appliances and counters were sparkly clean. Astrid seemed to do a good job … if that even was her job, Emma amended. For all she knew, Regina employed a chef.

"Putting you through now," the female voice at the other end said, and Emma barely had time to thank her before Marco came on the line.

"Emma? Emma is that you?" He asked, sounding worried. "You were supposed to call me hours ago!"

"Yes, it's me," Emma replied. "I had to pull an emergency landing in Maine."

"You're in _Maine_?"

"Yeah, some small place called Storybrooke," Emma explained further.

"What happened with the Lady?" Marco wanted to know.

Emma stopped for a second wondering how Marco could know about Regina before she realized that he was talking about their airplane. _Get your mind off that woman,_ she scolded herself. She explained what had happened as precisely as she could and how she came to need a landing strip close by. "A few miles further out and I could have tested the Lady's floating abilities," she finished. "So you got any idea what went wrong? There's a nice mechanic here who could probably help me fix it."

"Nah," Marco drawled. "I think I know what went wrong. I have the right spare part here but I'll need a couple of days to come out to Maine. Can you hold out that long?"

"You don't have to come all the way, Marco," Emma told him. "Why don't you ship it here?"

Marco laughed. "It's a pretty decent sized part, Emma," he said. "Shipping it would take just as long as if I just put it in the truck and drove over there. Besides, I'm not letting some mechanic from Podunk, Maine touch that airplane."

Emma laughed. "Okay, I'll be seeing you in a few days then. And don't worry about me, I'm fine here. I found a place to stay and I'll just make myself useful until you get here."

Leroy thought that was a good point in the conversation to vanish from the kitchen door. He had heard enough anyway. He hadn't come to a final conclusion yet, but if that phone call had been a coded conversation, it had been too cryptic for him. It sounded genuine enough, so he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for now. He slipped downstairs into the club to get back to work.

* * *

**Annotations:**  
**heater – gun** **Factoids:**  
**Why Emma had to buy men's jeans when she got to Iowa: Levi's began selling jeans for women (Levi's 701s) for the first time in 1934, so Emma was forced to make do with a small size of regular 501s. In the beginning, women's jeans were only sold in the western states of the U.S. for women working on ranches. If you wanted a pair of jeans on the east coast, you had to ship it across the country.**  
**Telephones and phone calls: In the beginning all calls had to be connected manually by an operator (who of course could listen in on all calls if she wanted). Local calls were slowly switched to direct dial service from the 1920s on, but manual switchboards (connected via operator) and electronic switchboards (direct dialing) coexisted for almost 30 years.**  
**Direct dialing for long distance calls began in November 1951, but the switching process for the whole country took quite a while (into the 1960s in some cities). International direct dialing became available from the 1970s.**  
**Collect calls were relatively common. You just had to let the operator know before you gave her the number so she knew to charge the other end for the phone call.**  
**Telephone numbers in the 1930 usually consisted of a word and a 3-digit number. The first two letters of the word translated into numbers, so Marco's number in the story, Westfield 459, would be dialed as 93-459 if direct dial service had been available at that time.**


	6. Chapter 5: The Very Thought Of You

**Disclaimer: Not my characters, obviously.**

**A/N: Thank you all for the faves, follows and reviews. :)**

**A/N 2: The chapter title is a song written by Ray Noble in 1934.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Very Thought Of You**

It looked like the club was slowly filling with people when Emma made it downstairs. She caught Leroy's eyes when she walked to the bar and to her surprise he gave her a small nod that looked almost friendly. _Weird._

Emma looked around but didn't feel quite comfortable enough to sit at one of the tables. She didn't feel like a normal patron, not with a room upstairs, so she decided to just sit at the bar. She made her way all the way to the end of it, to where it curved towards the back wall and took the last stool. The bartender registered her movement out of the corner of his eyes, she could tell, and she didn't have to wait long until he came over.

"So I guess you'll be staying with us for a while?" were the first words he said to her.

Emma raised an eyebrow. "How did you know?"

He chuckled. "You had that look when you arrived earlier and, well, Granny sent you. Plus, you're wearing one of the boss's dresses …" He trailed off. There was no way he would tell her that he had guessed from the look on Regina's face that the blonde would be staying. He could have been wrong after all. He also decided not to tell Emma that the dress she was wearing was one of Regina's personal favorites. "I'm David Nolan, by the way," he continued. "Just call me Nolan. Or David."

"I answer to Emma or Swan," Emma replied and held out her hand for David to shake. "Can I get a drink?"

"Sure," David replied with a shrug. "What's your poison? Dog soup, baby juice? Coffee?"

Emma spluttered in surprise. "Did you get your dates confused? The prohibition ended last year."

David grinned broadly. "It did … just not here in good old Maine."

"You're joking!"

"Nope, they're still discussing it over in Augusta." He shook his head. "Anyway, I was just messin' with you. What can I get you?"

"You got decent bourbon?"

David nodded and pulled a bottle from a cabinet under the bar. "This is the good stuff," he explained as he poured her a generous glass.

"So are there still raids and such going on up here?" she asked before taking her first sip. "Hm, this is good."

"Nah." David shook his head. "This is Gold's town," he said in a low voice. "He makes sure that businesses can run … undisturbed."

Emma studied David's face. "For the right price, I guess?"

"Everything has a price, Swan."

He was called away, so Emma turned in her seat to watch the room. There was a large flimsy curtain in one corner of the room through which she could see the slightly raised stage with a drum kit and a piano, making Emma wonder when Regina was going to grace them with her appearance. She could see another one of Regina's guys, the dark-haired one, doing something next to the stage. Emma wasn't sure from this distance but he looked like he had a wooden hand. _Wonder what his job is …_

More people were coming in, filling most of the tables. One table, sitting at a prominent spot — and Emma guessed the best seat in the house — was still empty. Gold's table, Emma assumed, and for a second she contemplated moving to that table just to see what would happen. She even tensed her muscles to stand.

"Don't," a low voice next to her said. Ruby slid onto the stool next to her.

"Don't what?"

"Don't mess with him," Ruby whispered. "I could read your thoughts from our table over there and I came to stop you." She pointed at the table where Granny was sitting. Emma gave her a small wave. "Be careful around him."

"He's not even here yet," Emma said, rolling her eyes, wondering when she had become so transparent that people could just read her like that. She dearly hoped her poker face had worked better on Regina.

"He might not be but …" Ruby stopped and looked around.

"Ah." Emma nodded. "Eyes and ears everywhere, huh?"

Ruby just nodded. "Want to join us at our table?"

Emma thought about it for a second but then decided to stay where she was. "Thank you, but I'm going to stay here for now." She made a vague motion round the room and towards the stage.

Ruby smiled knowingly. "Enjoying the view from here, I get it." She checked her small gold watch. "Speaking of enjoying the view, I wonder where the main attraction is. First set should have started already. Regina usually is very punctual. I wonder what's keeping her."

Now that she heard that Emma could see that the people were getting antsy. There was a tiny part of her that hoped that Regina's late arrival had a little something to do with her but she knew it was probably completely unrelated. From the corner of her eyes she could see how David called over the dark guy with the wooden hand. "Jones, go see what's up with the boss, will ya?"

**o o o**

After dumping the dresses on Emma, Regina had walked into her room with a smile on her face, which she suppressed as soon as she realized she was wearing it. Tonight could very well be make or break time for them, could be the night they finally found the evidence they would need to bring down that bastard Gold and his cronies.

The night she could finally be one step closer to getting her revenge.

She should be focused on that, and not the woman across the hall, not on the question which of the dresses she would choose to wear. She shouldn't have tossed two of her favorite dresses at Emma Swan just to see if she would pick one of them. Just because she wanted to _see_ her in one of them.

It was undeniable that something in her had awakened with the arrival of the blonde aviator, and there was a tingle in her body that she found both curious and exhilarating. She hadn't felt like that in way too many years. She went to her large closet and ran her hand along the clothes hanging there, trying to get a feel for what she would wear to the club tonight. Her hand stopped, and Regina raised the hand, as well as an eyebrow at her body's unconscious choice, and pulled the item from the rack.

She dropped the garment on her bed and began to undress, her face slowly forming a wicked smirk. She wondered what Miss Swan would think of her choice. Her mind wandered off a little, imagining the different reactions. Did Miss Swan even know that Regina wasn't just the owner of the club but also its main attraction? What would she think of Regina's performance?

Regina shook herself after being lost for who knew how long. What on Earth did she care what that woman would think of her?

Still she took much more care than usual with her hair and make-up, something she would never admit out loud. She checked herself in the mirror several times, attempting to quell her inexplicable nervousness, turning her head this way and that, trying to put on the mask of indifference she would need to get through a night of hosting and entertaining. She didn't stop until she was satisfied she looked the part. She looked hot, she was ready, she was—

"Hey, Boss?" There was a cautious knock on her door, and Regina checked the clock on her dresser.

She was late.

**o o o**

Killian Jones prided himself on being a tough guy. He had roughed up bad guys, and also some not so bad guys, and he had always had an eye for the ladies. But when Regina stepped through her door roughly two seconds after his knock, he knew he had never seen anything like _that_ before. He whistled softly and gave her an appraising look which Regina ended by hitting him upside the head.

"Ouch." He grinned devilishly.

"You like what you're seeing, Killian?" Regina asked silkily, toying with him.

"Oh, yeah," he breathed. "I gotta say though … I'm feeling sorry for whoever you want to impress tonight. They don't stand a chance."

"It's for our audience, Killian, nothing more," Regina replied with a smile and began to walk downstairs.

"If you say so, boss," Killian drawled. The he turned serious. "So we're playing the first set and if Gold arrives by then, I'm leaving afterwards to scope out the warehouses?"

Regina nodded. "I'm going to surprise the audience with a softer second set with just the piano and me. Should be good enough to keep them entertained."

"With you wearing that?" Killian countered. "You could read the phonebook and they'd be happy."

"As long as it keeps Gold and his partners occupied, I'll be happy." _And if a certain aviator enjoys it, well … we'll see._

Killian smirked, already looking forward to seeing people's reactions to her boss. He watched from the corner of his eye how Regina straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath becoming every inch the queen her name suggested she was.

"All right," Regina finally said. "Go get Hopper and get ready. We're going to start the set with …"

She leaned closer to Killian and whispered something in his ear. He grinned. "Good choice."

**o o o**

Ruby went back to her seat at the table when they spotted movement on the stage. Emma watched as a guy with round spectacles made his way there and sat down at the piano.

Seeing that, Leroy quickly walked to the stage and stood to the side of it. The chattering around the room died down as the small man turned down the lights until the atmosphere was intimate and everyone's eyes were focused on the stage. There was movement behind the curtain and then suddenly there was a voice singing a very slow a cappella version of a popular song. Emma closed her eyes, swallowing hard. _Darn, she was good._

_Times have changed _  
_And we've often rewound the clock _  
_Since the Puritans got a shock _  
_When they landed on Plymouth Rock. _  
_If today _  
_Any shock they should try to stem _  
_'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock, _  
_Plymouth Rock would land on them._

Then the music set in and Emma could hear the sound of the curtain being drawn to the side, followed by a collective gasp from the audience. Her eyes were still closed and she was strangely reluctant to open them. It was only when she heard Regina's amused chuckle at the audience's reaction that she couldn't stop her eyes from opening.

And her jaw from dropping. _Holy good goddamn._

Emma felt lightheaded, as if all her blood had dropped from her head to other body parts. She was suddenly feeling very, very warm. She heard a small laugh close to her but she couldn't tear her eyes from Regina to see who it was. She grabbed her drink and finished it in one gulp but that didn't help either. Why was everything suddenly getting slightly fuzzy around the edges? The only thing still in focus was Regina.

Regina in a tuxedo, top hat, tails, and all.

And then their eyes met across the room. _Oh my God_, Emma repeated in her head. _Take me now. _She never even registered the hitch in Regina's voice as she stumbled a little on her next line.

David did notice. He looked from one woman to the other, not sure whether he should be worried, angry, or happy for his boss. She had gone through so much in her life, and if this blonde stranger could bring her some happiness, he would be happy for her, he finally decided.

That, however, depended on Emma being still alive after Regina's set. He poured a glass of water and put it on the bar next to Emma, but the she didn't react. He saw the color of her face and he laughed a little, shaking his head. Regina did have an effect on people, that much was clear.

"Breathe, Swan!" he said loudly enough for her to hear over the music.

Emma gasped, releasing the breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding. She grabbed the water and gulped it down before finally turning to David with a dazed look and a half-smile she couldn't help.

"Thanks, mac," she wheezed.

"She's really something, isn't she?" David said casually, motioning towards Regina and the stage, admiration in his voice.

Suddenly a thought hit Emma, and it hit her hard, right in the chest. Was Regina in a relationship with one of her men? With David? The dark-haired one? She doubted Regina would give Leroy a second glance, but both David and the other guy were easy enough on the eyes.

Jealousy flared in her chest, and she narrowed her eyes. David looked at her questioningly before giving her a grin, obviously reading her body language. "Another deep breath wouldn't hurt, Swan," he said softly. "You need to relax if you want to survive the night." He smiled. "And in case you're wondering … we're working with Regina, nothing else."

"How did—?"

"Your face speaks volumes, Swan," David answered lightly. "You might want to work on that."

"Would you believe that I'm usually really good at hiding my feelings?" Emma asked sardonically. "I don't even know what's going on with me today."

David continued polishing a glass absent-mindedly as he gave her an appraising look. "Oh, I believe you, Swan," he replied easily. "But Regina is a force of nature and there's nothing much anyone can do about that."

He wondered if he should mention that judging from the looks between them, and the hitch in Regina's breath when she had seen Emma, the feeling was definitely not one-sided. He watched as the women's eyes met again and again, and was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable from the rising heat. It was hard to stay unaffected, and he looked around the club to see if anyone else was spotting what he could so easily see, but most patrons seemed completely oblivious.

Only Ruby and Granny were smirking a little as their eyes tracked the space between Regina and Emma as well. David gave Granny a small wave and a two-fingered salute. _Nice move sending the blonde here, Mrs. Lucas. _

He sent them both a drink on the house.

**o o o**

Regina couldn't keep her eyes off Emma. The moment she had spotted her sitting at the bar she almost lost the words to a song she had sung a hundred times. Her breath had hitched at the way the black dress, _her_ favorite dress, had clung to Emma's body in all the right places. Her eyes had traveled down the beautiful body, tracing every dip and curve, never lingering too long in one place. She couldn't afford to be too obvious but there was no denying the fact that Emma Swan was a very beautiful, very enticing, very attractive woman.

And then Regina's eyes had landed on the aviator boots that covered the lower half of Emma's legs, and her mouth had gone completely dry. What should have looked ridiculous, and would have on any other woman, somehow looked perfect on Emma.

It didn't matter that Regina had made Emma wear a dress in an attempt to unbalance her as much as the blonde unbalanced her. It didn't matter that Emma wore the dress like she wasn't used to wearing them. She made it work, she made the combination work. Emma Swan remained an aviator, an adventurous soul, deep inside, and despite the suspicions Regina held about her sudden appearance in Storybrooke, she couldn't help but be fascinated by that.

Regina wanted Emma, and while she was finishing off the first song of the first set, she found herself hoping that Emma really was just stranded here. She wanted her to be on the level, for Emma's sake, and her own as well. She wasn't sure her heart could take the alternative.

There was a short break after the first song as Killian had to switch his artificial appendage from brush to drumstick but he'd gotten really fast with that over the past year. Regina took the opportunity to look around the audience and take a bow, thanking them for the warm and enthusiastic applause. A discreet tap against the snare told her that Killian was ready and at a nod from her, he and Hopper jumped into the next song.

_The very thought of you and I forget to do_  
_The little ordinary things that everyone ought to do _  
_I'm living in a kind of daydream_  
_I'm happy as a king_  
_And foolish though it may seem _  
_To me that's everything_

Regina's eyes wandered back to the bar, to Emma who seemed to be talking to David. _Good, maybe he can find out more about her. _She smiled softly as she segued into the next verse, when suddenly there was a commotion at the door, and several people walked into the club. Regina's smile froze.

Mayor Gold had arrived.

* * *

**I already mentioned Maine's prohibition laws in a previous chapter, so I won't go into details here again. But the poor souls in Maine had to (officially and according to the law) stay dry from 1851 to July 1, 1934.**

**The two songs Regina sings in the chapter are ****_Anything Goes_**** by Cole Porter and ****_The Very Thought Of You_**** by Ray Noble.**

**dog soup - water**  
**baby, baby juice - milk**  
**mac - address for a guy**


	7. Chapter 6: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

**Disclaimer: Nothing has changed; I still don't own these characters.**

**A/N: I cheated a little with the chapter title since "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" was written in 1933 by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. However, it was a big hit in 1934.**

**A/N 2: Thank you for all the reviews, faves, and follows. I'm glad this little trip back in time has found so many friends. :)**

* * *

**Chapter 6: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes**

Killian left the club quickly and quietly as soon as they were done with the first set. He went to his room to change into something more suited for snooping around than the suit and tie he had been wearing for the gig. He also swapped his artificial hand from the drum hand he used when playing to the one that had a multi-purpose tool attached to it. It was modeled after the Swiss soldier knife he had seen around on his travels through Europe in the 1920s.

He stopped in the lobby for a second listening to the faint sounds coming from the club downstairs. He could hear the piano and Regina's voice, and with a last nod to himself he left the house. There was nobody outside as he got into the car and drove towards the small harbor area. He turned down the headlights as he neared the docks and parked the car well away from the cannery, so as not to attract attention from any of Gold's goons that could be guarding the buildings.

Everything appeared utterly deserted as he slowly made his way over to the cannery which was reason enough to raise the tiny hairs at the back of his neck. He stopped frequently to listen for any suspicious sounds but apart from the water splashing against the dock in an even rhythm it was almost eerily quiet.

o o o

Emma hadn't taken her eyes off Regina ever since she had started singing, and she wasn't planning on letting the woman out of her sight. Which is why she growled when Leroy sidled up to her, clearly inebriated, and almost managed to push her off her bar stool.

"I think you've had enough, Leroy," Emma hissed once she had righted herself. She glared at him.

Leroy snorted. "And who are you? Carrie Nation?"

He turned to David who was talking to a woman with a page boy haircut that didn't match the very modest, old-fashioned dress she was wearing. Everything about her screamed that she didn't belong in a nightclub, and Emma would have bet her Lady that the haircut was relatively new. Emma smiled as she saw the glass of milk in front of her.

"Who's the mousy dame David is talking to?" Emma asked Leroy who was trying to get David's attention.

"That?" he replied, indicating his head in the general direction. "That's Miss Blanchard," he explained. "Some dull Sunday school teacher broad. Nolan is completely dizzy with the dame, no idea why."

_Indeed,_ Emma thought, although she couldn't deny her relief at the confirmation that David really wasn't interested in Regina. She wished David all the happiness in the world with his mousy gal, for entirely unselfish reasons, of course. Her eyes wandered back to Regina, and she didn't give the nondescript woman at the bar another thought.

"Nolan!" Leroy shouted next to her, seemingly getting impatient for a drink.

David said something to his dame and walked over, pouring a drink on the way. But when Leroy reached for the shot glass, David held it out of his reach and put it down in front of Emma. "You've had enough, Leroy," he said seriously, and something in his tone seemed to get through to the stocky man. Leroy nodded and disappeared, walking off somewhere behind the stage.

Emma held up the fresh drink with a raised eyebrow. David grinned and leaned closer. "Regina is almost done with her second set," he whispered. "And knowing her you might need that to get through what's coming next."

"What is she going to do?" Emma asked nervously, her grip tightening on her glass.

"Something she only does when she's in a very specific kind of mood," he replied mysteriously, before walking back to Miss Blanchard.

_Well, that was helpful._ Emma looked back at Regina and wasn't surprised when their eyes met instantaneously. What did surprise her was the smirk on Regina's face, and the wicked gleam in those dark eyes she imagined she could see even from this distance. _What on earth is that woman up to?_

Emma downed her drink. She had a feeling with Regina it was better to be prepared for anything.

o o o

It wasn't Killian's first trip to the cannery and he knew exactly where he was headed. There was a fire escape at the back of the cannery, which he climbed without making a sound. He propped open the large, milky window at the top of the stairs and climbed inside. He landed in a crouch on the metal walkway that ran all the way along the upper floor of the building from the offices on the other side to this fire exit. He cringed when his boots made a dull clanging sound as he landed but nothing and nobody stirred in the building.

With a deep breath, Killian slowly crept forward until he could see down onto the main floor of the former factory. His eyes widened. Even in the dim light of a single light bulb he could see that the huge room was anything but empty. There were stacks of large wooden crates to one side, and now his nose twitched at the faint smell of gun oil. Stacked against the other side of the room were medium-sized boxes that could hold anything from dope to booze. He had to go down there to check it out.

It was slow going. Killian knew better than to expect a building that looked empty to actually be empty, so he had to be extra careful unless he wanted to end up with a severe case of lead poisoning. It took him almost ten minutes to work his way down the metal stairs to the lower floor as they were close to the office area where he assumed any of Gold's brunos to be hiding if there were any.

He followed the smell of the gun oil to the first set of crates. They were closed so he carefully worked his way along the crates to find one that might be not shut as tightly as the others. At the other end of the room he finally got lucky. One of the crates had been opened before, possibly to inspect the goods inside, and the lid was only resting on top of it. Killian pushed it back a little and got out his small flashlight.

"Holy shit." He whistled under his breath. "That's a lot of hardware."

They had been on the right trail, and with this they could get Gold, and finally end this assignment in the boonies. A man like him just wasn't made for this small town life. It suited Joes like David and Leroy, and even Regina to a degree, but a cake-eater like him? He belonged in the big city where women were beautiful and plentiful, and opportunities were everywhere you dared to look.

Oh, he would enjoy being back in the apple.

o o o

Regina enjoyed the softer set she had to sing with just the piano accompanying her because she got to sing some songs that she didn't sing all that often, making both her audience and herself happy.

She walked around among the audience a little bit with these songs, trying to get close to Gold's table to maybe catch a word here and there. She knew David had been doing frequent booze runs to the table all night to do the same thing, keeping them well lubricated, but once that bible-thumping teacher had shown up, he'd been glued to his bar flapping his gums to her.

Regina barely avoided walking into tables and chairs when her eyes would invariably track back to Emma. She could see the spellbound way the other woman's eyes followed her around the room, and she had a hard time not to just walk up to her and kiss her.

Her brain skidded to a halt for a second as she had an idea. She slowly walked back to the stage while finishing her penultimate song. It was time to end tonight's performance, and she knew just the thing. She leaned close to Archie Hopper and whispered something in his ear. She smiled at the way he nodded with a grin as if he had expecting nothing less ever she came out dressed like this. She lit a cigarette, mostly for show and to get the atmosphere right, and started to sing.

_Lorsque tout est fin_  
_Quand se meurt votre beau rêve_

She stepped down from the stage and made her way through the audience again. Her free hand ran along a shoulder here and an arm there as she wove her way though the tables. She loved the appreciative moans and the slightly nervous laughter she could hear from the less wordily of her patrons. She deliberately stayed away from the bar and kept her eyes away from Emma, even though she would have loved to see the look on her face to see if she had figured it out yet.

_Maybe she hasn't seen the picture, _she thought, _but she would be one of the few in this room._ Most people in the audience apparently had seen the picture judging from the whispers and the murmured names. When she finally chanced a glance over her shoulder in Emma's direction, she grinned when she saw the woman down a drink as if she was dying of thirst.

The song came to an end, and Regina finished the last few lines leaning against Gold's table in a casual manner. The men at the table were staring at her, although not all of them in admiration. Gold's face was closed off and he mustered her shrewdly, as if he knew what was coming and dared her to continue at her own peril. His moll was staring at her a little slack-jawed, the poor innocent thing. Regina winked at her and the girl giggled into her drink.

_Les baisers sont flétris _  
_Le roman vite s'achève _  
_Et l'on reste à jamais meurtri_  
_Quand tout est fini_

The applause at the end of the song was loud, and there were wolf whistles from a table nearby. Regina threw a glance at Ruby who just shrugged with a large grin and gave her a thumbs-up.

Regina glided closer to Gold's girl, Belle, and leaned in. There were gasps all around from people, and from the corner of her eyes Regina could see a few concerned faces who all seemed to be looking at Gold and waiting for his reaction. Involuntarily, Regina's eyes wandered to Emma's face for a second and she could see the woman halfway off her bar stool with an unreadable expression on her face. One of her hands was curled around the bar rail so hard Regina could see the knuckles going white even from her position.

At the last moment, Regina changed course and only patted Belle's cheek, blowing her a kiss with another wink. The girl giggled again, and Gold nodded his head with a small, knowing smile. Regina barely managed to refrain from rolling her eyes at the display. Everybody in the room seemed to draw in a breath at the same time, even David behind the bar who had been shooting her warning looks all through the song.

Emma had sat back down but Regina wasn't going to let her off the hook so soon. She still had a performance to finish in style, and she had to keep Gold and his entourage interested enough in staying as long as possible. Besides, she was in a devilish mood, and she needed an outlet for it, so she put out her cigarette, grabbed a white carnation from the decoration on Gold's table and very slowly sauntered over to the bar, twirling the flower in her hand.

Regina could see David shaking his head with a resigned look on his face but there was nothing and nobody that could stop her now. She stopped in front of Emma, knowing even without looking over her shoulder that everyone in the room was watching her every move.

"May I?" she asked, raising the flower a little. At Emma's nod, Regina delicately placed the carnation behind the blonde's left ear, her eyes never leaving Emma's. Emma held her breath when Regina's fingers touched her hair, and her eyes fluttered close.

Regina was mesmerized by the beautiful face before her, by the breathless anticipation on her features that she knew mirrored her own. Before she could help herself she leaned in and pressed her lips lightly against Emma's.

There was a sigh but Regina was unsure whether she had made the sound in her head or if it had been audible to anyone else around them. She broke the sweet kiss after too short a time, and the applause and wolf whistles she received this time from her adoring audience were even louder than before.

Regina turned around to face the tables and took a bow with a smile, leaving a stunned Emma sitting behind her. She realized something was going on, however, when everyone's eyes moved to the woman she had just kissed. Curious, Regina turned around and came face to face with a determined-looking Emma. _Uh-oh._

Her brain had no time to form a question before Emma grabbed the lapels of her tailcoat and pulled her into another kiss, completely ignoring the utter impropriety of that move outside of a performance. The kiss was soft and fierce at the same time, and it made Regina go weak at the knees. _Good Lord, that woman could kiss._ The noise around them died away, leaving just the two of them, or maybe it was the fact that all she could hear was her heartbeat thundering inside her head.

When Emma let go of her after a long, wonderful, still not nearly long enough moment, sounds came rushing back in, and there were two distinct whistles coming from the mostly silent room behind them.

"Marvelous show, girl," Granny Lucas yelled loudly into the silence, showing her appreciation and giving Emma and Regina a believable out for their highly inappropriate behavior. "That's how the Dietrich should have done it."

As the applause came back slowly, hesitantly, Regina shot Ruby and Granny a grateful look over her shoulder before turning back to Emma. The blonde was blushing furiously, as if only becoming aware of what she'd done in public, which Regina found endearing enough to want to kiss the look right off her face again and again.

When their eyes met once more after a moment, she couldn't resist a wink and a grin, unable to ignore the giddy feeling inside.

o o o

Inside the cannery, Killian was happy with what he'd found, but he knew Regina expected him to check the whole place for anything that might be of use to them. _Better check the other boxes as well, _he thought as he crossed the room and headed for a box in the back where any tampering wouldn't be detected straight away. He chose the knife on his multi-tool and cut the box lengthwise along the top. He pulled back the cardboard a little and shone his flashlight inside.

"Holy shit!" he breathed out again. _This is even better._ Maybe Regina would finally let him into her pants when he came home with the big news. He should get back to the club to report what he had found.

Suddenly there was a small sound behind him and he whirled around. Flashlights turned on, blinding him, and making it impossible for him to see who was there.

"Well, well, well," a male voice said, sounding entirely too conversational for the situation at hand. "What do we have here?"

* * *

**The multi-purpose tool on Killian's prosthesis is of course based on what is nowadays known as the Swiss Army knife. The Swiss Army knife was invented in 1890 for use by soldiers of the Swiss army and was originally simply called Soldier knife (model 1890). The model Killian would have seen in use was the Soldier knife model 1908, which was produced from 1908 to 1951.**

**"Who are you? Carrie Nation?" was a common question for someone who refused someone else a drink during the prohibition. Carrie Nation was a radical member of the temperance movement in Kansas and violently promoted prohibition through vandalism. Her specialty was walking into bars with a hatchet and destroying everything within her reach. She was arrested numerous times for her "hatchetations" but she also had some loyal followers. Bar owners, however, often hung up signs in their bars that read "All Nations Welcome But Carrie"**

**Regina finishes her set with the song "Quand l'Amour Meurt" from the movie 1930 ****_Morocco_**** that Marlene Dietrich ends with a kiss to a more or less shocked female patron. While she may have originally planned to kiss Belle to rile up Gold, she couldn't go through with it in the end since there was someone much more to her liking to kiss.**

**a case of lead poisoning - being shot**  
**to be dizzy with a dame - head over heels in love with a woman**  
**lead poisoning - to be shot**  
**bruno - henchman, hired gun**  
**Joe - average guy**  
**cake-eater - ladies' man**  
**flap your gums - talk (usually about nothing useful)**  
**picture - movie**  
**moll - gangster's girlfriend**


	8. Chapter 7: The Bad In Every Man

**Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters.**

**A/N: I'd like to thank all of you who have let me know they're enjoying my nerdy little trip into history. I'm glad I haven't scared you off yet. :)**

* * *

**Chapter 7: The Bad In Every Man**

Once the applause died down after Regina's performance and their unexpected kiss, Regina knew she had to go back to doing her job. She gave Emma one last look over her shoulder that let the other woman know that she'd much prefer to stay close to her, and Emma gave her a nod, disappointed but understanding.

Regina braced herself for what she needed to do next — keeping an eye and both ears on Gold and his entourage — but decided there was one stop she need to make on the way to their table.

"Good evening, Granny," she said with a small, grateful grin. "Ruby."

"Quite a performance," the older of the two Lucas women said casually.

Regina winked at her. "Glad you approve." She leaned over and kissed the older woman on the cheek. "Thank you," she whispered.

"It was my pleasure seeing you like that," Granny whispered back with a wicked grin, patting Regina's hand. "We got your back, girl, remember that."

Regina glanced back at Emma for a second. "Well, you sent her to me, and I'm quite sure you had your reasons. I'm just not sure what they were ..."

Ruby laughed lightly. "If you had seen the two of you at the diner today, you wouldn't ask that."

Regina shrugged with a smile. It was true after all. She had felt drawn to Emma Swan from the moment she had seen her, no matter how mysterious her sudden appearance was. Just this once, Regina wanted to ignore all the warning signs and just go for it. She pulled out the third chair and sat. "What do you know about Ms. Swan?" she asked, keeping her voice down.

Granny and Ruby looked at each other. "About as much as you do, I'd wager," Granny finally replied.

"Maybe less given how close you two were just now …" Ruby added with a smirk.

Regina shook her head. "That was just …" She trailed off unsure how to explain it.

"Yeah, yeah, part of the performance." Granny held up a hand to silence Regina. "It wasn't and we all know it." Regina glared at Granny but didn't deny the claim.

"All we know is that she came into the diner this afternoon," Ruby explained. "She had a coffee, changed out of her flight suit, and then spent the rest of her stay trying not to stare at you. She failed miserably, by the way." Ruby chuckled. "Oh, and I think Mike brought her in from the airfield. You should ask him if you want to know more." She pointed out the mechanic sitting at a back table across the room.

Regina's eyes followed her gaze and found a thirty-something guy in his faded Sunday best. She recognized him as one of the regulars but he wasn't anyone she had ever talked to on her rounds through the audience. He looked over when he felt eyes on him and gave her a shy nod. _Time to introduce myself, I guess. _

"I think I'll go do just that, ladies." She rose gracefully but a hand on her arm stopped her. "What?"

"Be gentle," Granny said. "He has a huge crush on you."

"He and every other guy in this room," Ruby added under her breath.

Regina nodded. "Don't worry," she reassured the women. "I'll be keeping my kid gloves on."

**o o o**

If Emma had a hard time keeping her eyes off Regina before, she was finding it completely impossible now. She stayed sitting at the bar, her eyes glued to Regina, as her brain kept replaying the kiss in her head. She still couldn't understand what had gotten into her. She got that Regina's kiss had been part of the performance, or at least she assumed it was — after all, she and Marco had driven all the way to Dubuque when _Morocco_ had come out in 1930 — but what she couldn't wrap her mind around was her own reaction: it had been impulsive, reckless even. She was done with things like that, wasn't she?

_Yeah, that doesn't sound even remotely like you,_ she heard Marco's voice in her head, dripping sarcasm from every syllable.

Ah well, maybe she had never been the most level-headed person in the world … but this? This was on a whole new level, even for her. It was as if her brain had completely shut off the second Regina had kissed her, and even now she couldn't bring herself to regret it. She was ignoring all the warning signs, everything her life on the streets of Chicago had taught her because she was completely gone on a woman she knew nothing about and who might well be up to no good. She shook her head at herself but even as she did she could feel a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she watched Regina talk to Ruby and her grandmother.

She sighed and saw David shooting her a knowing look.

_You are in deep, deep trouble, Swan._

**o o o**

Regina deliberately walked by Gold's table just to see if she could pick up something from their conversation. She saw that Gold was deep in a low conversation with the stranger he had brought with him, which stopped almost immediately when she got close to the table. But it wasn't before Regina had caught a few words, and what she heard gave her pause. She had no idea that Gold spoke German and that was definitely what she had heard. Something about blueprints, she was sure. But blueprints of what?

She stopped at their table and gave everyone an inviting smile. "Gentlemen," she said in the sultry tone she knew had men eating out of her hands. "And Miss French," she added, bowing before Gold's moll, who smiled nervously at the gesture. "Is everything to your liking? Can I get you anything else?"

"Everything's fine," Gold snarled, clearly impatient to see her go.

"Your club really is as fine as I was told," the stranger and assumed business partner added with a smarmy smile and a light accent.

"Oh, you've heard of our little club then?" Regina put on a wide-eyed look and lighter voice. "Let me welcome you to The Queen's Club. I am—"

"The Queen herself, I assume," the blonde stranger said, rising out of his seat and taking her hand in both of his. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty," he continued as he bent low and pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

Fighting the urge to pull her hand back immediately and wipe it on her pants, Regina wrestled a smile onto her face. "Please," she said with a laugh that she hoped didn't sound as false to them as it did to her own ears, "my name is Regina. Regina Mills."

"Viktor Frankenstein," he replied in pure, gentlemanly reflex, and from Gold's reaction it seemed the mayor wasn't too happy that he had revealed his name.

"I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of seeing you in our little establishment," Regina commented, slowly withdrawing her hand from his, trying not to grimace. This man gave her the creeps but her job required her to try and make conversation with him, to try and get more information. "Are you new in town, Mr. Frankenstein?"

"I am just here for a few days on business," he replied with a relaxed and somewhat patronizing grin as he sat back down. "Nothing to worry your lovely head over, little lady."

"You heard my friend, Miss Mills," Gold interjected smoothly. "And as much as all of us enjoy your company …" His voice indicated the exact opposite which gave Regina a certain sense of satisfaction. "We would like to return to our business." His tone was just barely skating the edge of friendly and menacing, and Regina could see his other goon, Jefferson, sitting a little straighter in his seat in warning.

Regina had always been rather good at taking a hint and decided to let it go. She had gotten what she'd wanted anyway. She had a name she could follow up on, and what could even be more significant, she had heard them speak in German about something they definitely didn't want anyone else to know about.

She sent a fake smile at the three men and put a hand on Miss French's shoulder. "We must have tea sometime," she said with exaggerated friendliness. "I'd love to hear all about that new library that the town is getting." _I want to see if Gold using it for something he shouldn't._

Belle French raised her head to Regina with a beaming smile. "Oh, I would positively love that, Miss Mills. We must do that soon."

With a curt bow, Regina turned and continued on to Mike Tillman's table, a soft smile playing around her lips. This was shaping up to be a good night. She had some information, and if they were lucky, Killian would bring back news as well. Maybe they could finally put Gold and his cronies out of business, and she needed to focus on that.

Her eyes went to Emma without a conscious choice.

_Focus, yes. You need to focus on the _important_ things. _

And Emma was a major distraction.

**o o o**

Emma watched as the blond man at the mayor's table put his paws and kisser on Regina and was halfway off her barstool before she caught David's violent head shake and hissed "Stop!" She froze, then sat back down, not taking her eyes off Regina.

David came over to her with another drink which he set down in front of her. "She's just doing her job, Swan," he reminded her. "So the gink got a little closer to Regina than you'd like but that doesn't mean you can go over there and gum up the works for her by rapping him."

"How is getting slobbered on by some egg a part of her job?" Emma grumbled. "Isn't it enough for the people that she sings like an angel? That should be enough entertainment for them."

"Maybe it should," David said with an easy smile. "And maybe Regina has a _reason_ for doing what she's doing. Ever thought about that, Swan?" Emma didn't reply but David could still see the jealousy behind the stormy eyes. He sighed and leaned closer. "Take this one piece of advice from an old bartender, Swan," he whispered. "Just because you kissed her once, doesn't mean you own her."

Emma gave him a baleful glare but nodded after a moment. She reached for her drink and started playing with the glass. "It was twice," she mumbled before she emptied the shot in one gulp.

David laughed and turned back to his twist, leaving Emma to her thoughts.

**o o o**

The rest of the night went by smoothly. Regina's little conversation with Mike didn't reveal much more than his insistence that Emma's plane was indeed stranded. He'd seen it come down, he had explained, and unless the pilot was suicidal, nobody would ever go down like that unless they absolutely had to. It had been a miracle that the plane and the pilot had been in one piece, he had claimed.

Since that fit the information Leroy had whispered to her before the first set about the phone conversation he had overheard, Regina was willing to believe that Emma Swan really was the real deal. Just a beautiful aviator stranded in the middle of a bad situation she had no knowledge of. Regina swore that she would try to keep Emma out of the worst of it, if she could. She just wasn't sure that was actually possible with her staying in the house with all of them. One more reason to hope this would all be over soon.

Regina had done a third set of songs accompanied by Hopper and it had been getting late by the end of it. Regina discreetly checked her watch several times. _Where was Killian? If he wasn't back by now did that mean he found something big? Or that something had gone wrong? _She was distracted enough by her thoughts that she almost fumbled the lyrics to _Blue Moon_ and from the concerned look on David's and Emma's faces that she could see even from the stage, she hadn't covered that up nearly well enough.

The club cleared relatively quickly after the last set ended and Regina thanked her patrons, paying special attention to Gold and Frankenstein. As soon as they were out the door, she motioned for Leroy to follow them and make sure they actually left the premises. He went after them and watched as they got into Gold's brand-new Chevrolet Master and drove off. Leroy returned to the club, locking the entrance behind him and returning to the stock room behind the bar.

Emma watched everything from her seat at the bar, rendered immobile by indecision. Should she just quietly go upstairs, get out of the way? Stick around and maybe help with whatever needed to be done? What she _wanted_ to do was grab Regina and drag her upstairs so they could talk but she was afraid that wasn't going to happen from the way Regina refused to meet her eyes.

Emma played with the glass in her hand as she watched David and Regina count the night's profits."Good night?" she asked.

"Not too bad," David replied.

Regina ignored her question, stuffing the stacks of dollar bills into a small satchel instead. "Please take this to the safe," she asked David, handing him the money. He nodded and walked off, but not before shooting Emma a look over his shoulder and pointing at Regina who was already moving away towards the stage area.

Emma took that as her cue. She jumped off her barstool and followed the other woman. "Regina, wait," she called out. "Please?"

Regina stopped but didn't turn around. She couldn't face Emma, not without dragging her off somewhere to kiss her senseless and so much more. That would not be safe for either of them, especially not for Emma, and as much as it hurt, Regina was trying to do the right thing. She should never have kissed the blonde in the first place. She needed to _focus_.

"What's going on, Regina?" Emma's voice was rough. "You kiss me and now you're ignoring me? What happened between then and now?"

Regina closed her eyes at the confusion in Emma's voice. "The kiss was part of the performance," she said, and was surprised at how hoarse her voice was. _Too much singing and talking tonight, without a doubt._ "I'm sorry it … confused you." She swallowed hard.

"Confused me?" _That_ got Emma just angry enough to forget her uncertainty. "The kiss didn't confuse me, and I _know_ it was part of your performance." She reached out and grabbed Regina's shoulder, turning her around a little more forcefully than necessary.

From what Regina had said she expected to see a sneer or smirk on her face, so she was taken aback by the pleading look. _And was that fear?_ Emma gentled her voice immediately. "I know the first kiss was a performance," she said softly, "but your reaction to it wasn't, and neither was mine. And the second kiss definitely wasn't for show."

Regina still refused to meet her eyes, so Emma tilted her head up with two finger until Regina had no choice but to close her eyes. "Look at me, please," she murmured. "Look at me and tell me I'm imagining things."

Regina shook her head. "I can't," she whispered, eyes still closed.

"Why not?" There were only inches between their faces now. Emma's hand moved to cup Regina's cheek. "Why?"

Regina sighed and Emma could feel the breath on her face. It felt like the lightest of kisses, making her lips tingle and her stomach clench. Her thumb unconsciously stroked Regina's cheekbones and she pulled her closer still.

"Don't," Regina pleaded, heart racing. It was taking all the strength she had not to wrap Emma in her arms. Another fraction of an inch closer to the other woman, and she knew there was nothing left inside her to stop herself. Her self-control was frayed as it was.

"Or?"

Emma's sub-vocal purr didn't help. Regina sighed again. "Or I'm going to kiss you and never stop," she growled low in her throat as she finally opened her eyes despite her best effort not to. The look on Emma's face, the desire, the want, killed the meager remains of her resolve. "And that would be such a bad id—"

She was stopped by Emma's lips on hers, kissing her fiercely. This time around Regina knew the moan she heard came from her because she could feel it working its way up through her body. When she felt Emma's tongue against her lips there was only a moment's hesitation, a wisp of a thought that she might still be able to stop, before she allowed Emma to deepen the kiss and pour gasoline on the fire burning inside them both.

Emma kissed Regina with all she had, tasting, feeling, finding ways to make Regina moan and sigh, never realizing that half the sounds she heard were her own. Her free hand curled into the lapel of Regina's tailcoat, needing something to grab onto so as not to rip the clothes off of the other woman right here in the middle of the club.

Emma wrenched her mouth from Regina's when she felt a hand in the middle of her back, and nails digging into the skin left bare by the dress. She hissed in pleasure and dove back into another kiss, hard, wet and passionate, and she reveled in the feeling of being kissed back with equal abandon.

The sound of a glass breaking by the bar stopped them before they could go any further, and Regina was secretly glad for the chance to get some composure back. They both took a step back and turned around, blushing fiercely as they came face to face with a roguishly grinning Killian Jones.

"Now that was a sight for sore eyes," he commented, pointing between the two women as if it wasn't obvious what he was talking about.

"Killian," Regina said, her voice breathless and shaky. "When did you get back?"

"Just now," Killian replied easily but he didn't meet Regina's eyes. "I tried clearing my throat a couple of times but you were a little too … _busy_ to notice, I guess."

There was something strange in his voice, Regina thought. She had known Killian for more than a year, and she'd never heard that particular inflection before. It could be put down to jealousy maybe but whatever it was, it made the hairs at the back of her neck stand up.

David and Leroy joined them before Regina could say anything else to Killian. _Back to business then,_ she thought more than a little reluctantly. She turned to Emma who was still standing very close. "Miss Swan," she started but a finger on her lips stopped her.

"I know," Emma whispered. "You have business to attend to. Stop by for a goodnight kiss when you're done?"

Regina nodded. "See you later."

Emma squeezed Regina's hand before leaving the room with a wide smile on her face. As soon as the door closed behind her, Regina turned to her men. She told them what she had heard at Gold's table and David shared what he had heard, which wasn't much.

"Okay, David," Regina finally said, "tomorrow morning you're going to call the chief and ask him to run that Frankenstein guy. I have a bad feeling about him, and I want to know who he is and what his connection to Gold is."

"Will do, boss," David said.

Regina turned to Killian. "Did you have any trouble tonight? You looked a little … shaken when you came back."

Killian laughed but it sounded hollow to Regina's ears. "That was probably because of the honey cooler you and the lovely blonde you were enjoying. Otherwise it was uneventful."

Regina glared at him, daring him to say more on the matter. He raised his hands in surrender, grin still firmly in place. "So what did you find out?"

"Nothing much." Killian looked off to the side. "There were a couple of crates in the cannery with the usual hardware," he replied vaguely. "Chicago typewriters, mostly. Some smaller gats." He was speaking mostly to his artificial hand at this point. "And then there were a few boxes, packed with neat rows of Cadillacs."

"Gold is a dope peddler now?" David wondered aloud while Regina was just watching Killian as he shifted from foot to foot. Something was off about him but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She just knew that he had never had any trouble meeting her eyes before, usually with a cocky smirk, so his behavior tonight was strange. Maybe it really did have something to do with the kiss he witnessed. Regina was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; she owed him that much after a year of working with him.

"All right, that's good information," she finally said. "Maybe it'll be enough to nail him. Did you find out when they're shipping the goods and where? Or who our German guest is?"

Killian shook his head. "Nope," he answered with a quick shake of his head for emphasis. "A few of Gold's goons came in before I could check the office and I had to lie low for a while before I could sneak out again."

_That certainly would explain why he was gone so long,_ Regina thought. "Glad you made it out okay," she said with a smile. "Not too much trouble, I hope?"

"Nah." And there was the cocky smirk. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

Regina nodded. "Anything else?" She looked at the three men who shook their heads. "Well, then I guess we can call it a night. David, let the chief know what Killian found out, will ya?"

"Sure thing."

"Good work tonight, boys," Regina said as she turned to go upstairs. "Have a good night."

"Not as good as yours," Killian muttered under his breath, just loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Regina ignored him but made a mental note to keep a closer eye on Killian, and to ask David to do the same. If there was something wrong with him they needed to figure it out sooner rather than later but before she could focus on the issue, her brain switched to thoughts of Emma Swan waiting for her upstairs.

**o o o**

Emma felt as if her feet weren't even touching the ground as she floated up the stairs on the waves of the arousal running through her body, first to the foyer of the mansion, then up to her room. Once there, though, she was unsure of what to do next. She had no idea how long Regina would need to wrap up the day's business and, more importantly, if the promise of a goodnight kiss would involve just a kiss or maybe, hopefully more.

Emma was not a chippy by any stretch of the imagination, although she had had her share of affairs during her time in Chicago. Sometimes going home to some joe's cave made the difference between starving and living another day, and there was always a price to pay. Desperate times really did require desperate measures.

Those days were far behind her, however, and whatever happened between her and Regina would have nothing to do with a roof over her head or a few drinks. No, if anything happened, and _good goddamn did she hope and pray,_ then it would be simply because Regina was the first person in years who made her feel, who made her want to forget everything that's good and proper and right, and just _be_.

Emma bit her lip as she stood in the middle of her room, thinking. She couldn't very well get naked and present herself like that but she also didn't want to lounge around in that beautiful dress Regina had made her wear. And putting her jeans back on didn't sound like the best option either. She looked at the clothes she had worn on her flight here. She was already wearing the only pair of panties she had brought but they were probably a little ruined from the hours of simmering arousal that she'd felt all night. Her other pair of underwear were her long-johns that she had worn under her flight overalls to stay warm.

She dug around inside her small travel bag to see if she could find something else. _Ha!_ There, in a small inside pocket of her bag she found a pair of boxer trunks that she often used to sleep in. It looked clean enough, so she slipped out of the dress and panties and pulled on the boxers and the button-down shirt she had been wearing under her flight suit. She gently placed the dress back on a hanger and hung it against the armoire in her room.

_Well, that killed a whole ten minutes,_ Emma realized with a frustrated sigh. She was beginning to feel a little weird, wired and tired at the same time. Arousal was still coursing through her body, making her antsy and impatient, but beneath that was a bone-deep weariness that came with having had a long and exciting day. Maybe it would be better to just lie down and rest her eyes until Regina came upstairs?

It was that thought that made her yawn, Emma was sure. It had nothing to do with the fact that she had gotten up at 4am to get ready for her test flight. Emma opened the door a little, so as not to miss Regina, and crawled under the insanely comfortable covers. She promised herself five minutes of rest, just so she could be a little rejuvenated when Regina would come by.

She didn't even notice when she fell asleep dreaming of goodnight kisses and more.

**o o o**

Regina checked her watch as she walked up the stairs to the bedrooms. It was much later than she had expected it would be, and she was beginning to feel it. She loved to sing but three sets of songs and the constant entertaining between the sets took it out of her. She refused to succumb to her exhaustion, not when she knew Emma was mere steps away, waiting for her and whatever would happen between them.

Regina had no idea what she wanted to happen, what she could allow to happen between them, at least not tonight. She knew herself well enough to see the inevitability of them, to recognize that unless she ran far, far away right now, something was definitely going to happen between her and Emma. And while the thought terrified her, it was also wonderful to suddenly realize that she was still capable of feeling things for another person.

Regina stopped on the stairs as she thought back to the last person who had made her feel that way, so many years ago. She was surprised to realize that it hurt less than it usually did, and then she noticed with a gasp that she hadn't thought of Daniel at all today. She felt bad about that for a moment until she remembered his dying wish. _Find someone else, _he had said as he bled out in her arms. _You're too pretty to turn into an old maid._

_Maybe I've found someone, Daniel._ She continued up the stairs and stopped at Emma's door which was slightly ajar. The light was on, however, so Regina pushed the door open, expecting Emma to greet her with a smile and a reminder about the promised kiss.

What she found instead made her smile fondly. Emma was sleeping peacefully, wrapped around a pillow and snuggled under the covers. _My God, she's beautiful,_ Regina thought and before she realized what she was doing she walked over to the bed. Her hand reached out to gently, so gently remove the white carnation from behind Emma's ear. She set it down on the bedside table as she turned to go. Before she had taken one step, she turned around again, impulsively, and leaned down to press her lips lightly against Emma's temple. _A promise was a promise._

"Good night, Miss Swan." She turned down the light and closed the door on her way out, a feeling of inexplicable warmth in her chest.

**o o o**

Emma had no idea what had woken her up but the short moment of panic as she didn't recognize the bed she was in had her disoriented for a moment. She looked around the room in the dim orange light that came through the window until she remembered that she was at the mansion, at Regina's house.

Her eyes fell on the closed door and the carnation on the bedside table. Regina had come in and she had been asleep. _God, she wanted to hit herself for missing that._

The light through the window seemed to get a little more intense and Emma wondered if that was a spectacular sunrise. Then the dark sky registered in her brain, as did the sound and smell, and suddenly she knew with absolute clarity what had woken her up.

The mansion was on fire.

* * *

**Annotations**

"The Bad In Every Man" is a song from the 1934 movie _Manhattan Melodrama_. It was written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The song is actually _Blue Moon_ with new lyrics written specifically for the movie. The movie _Manhattan Melodrama_ became famous because it was the desire to see this movie that got John Dillinger killed — truly a movie worth dying for. Dillinger couldn't resist the temptation to see it, so he ventured out to the Biograph Theater in Chicago on July 22, 1934. When he got out of the theater after the movie he was shot by federal agents.

Boxer trunks, later called boxer shorts, became popular in the 1920s and stayed popular until the end of the 1930s and the rise of the briefs. They were based on the shorts boxers wore, as the name suggests, and were used as men's underwear from 1925 onward.

The Thompson machine gun became famous (or infamous) during the prohibition years as it was the most popular gun used by both gangsters and law enforcement. Among the many nicknames for the gun were Tommy Gun, Chicago typewriter, and Chopper.

kisser - mouth

gink - a man (maybe a little odd)

gum up the works - mess things up

rap - hit

egg - a crude person

twist - woman

honey cooler - kiss

Chicago typewriters - Thompson machine gun (Tommy Gun)

gat - gun

Cadillac - one ounce packet of cocaine or heroin

dope peddler - dealer

chippy - woman of easy virtue

joe - average guy

cave - apartment


End file.
